You win, you lose
by SacredAir
Summary: Ros' perspective of the events with occur at the end of 7x08. There's no way this story only fits in to two genre types! Reead and enjoy!


**Oookkaaaay!**

**After watching that last episode of series 7 of Spooks, I felt the need to express my excitement by writing a fic from Ros' point of view about the last few minutes of that episode. **

**So, enjoy! **

**Spooks belongs to the BBC**

**(I wouldn't mind a few reviews….if that isn't too much to ask! Feel free to give constructive criticism ^_^) **

Just in time, we somehow managed to find a gap to scramble into as the deafening rumble of the explosion shook everything up making my ears ring. We flattened ourselves against the wall and stood over each other with our eyes closed, expecting the worst. If I had to die, it would be good to be in the company of a friend. At times like these, what really mattered really shone through.

I wondered briefly if the world had collapsed around us, as we stood there, half crouched in an all too familiar ready position which would enable us to sprint away swiftly if there was any danger. A position which now came as naturally as breathing to me. It wasn't something you were taught, more like something which you pick up, and do well to not forget.

Though if this situation could become more dangerous than it already was, I doubted we'd have much more of a chance of getting to safety than a snowball would have of surviving in hell.

I could feel Lucas' breath on my neck. It came in short, sharp gasps, and I didn't know if it was his injury or Connie James' last words which had put him in this state. I couldn't help but feel concerned. Its one emotion I find hard to suppress.

_Connie licked her lips, as she fiddled expertly with the wires. 'What you've lost can sometimes be found, Lucas.'_

_She carried on talking, telling us how she was going to go about disarming the bomb, as though she had done it a thousand times before. 'I'm not scared of bombs.'_

_I stood there staring at her, and Lucas got up from his crouching position with some difficulty, turning towards me to leave. My voice finally decided to work, and I said goodbye. 'Connie…'_

_I turned and started to walk away too, catching up with Lucas easily. _

'_Oh, Lucas?' We looked at each other, and turned around slowly. Connie continued to sort out the wires, and appeared entirely absorbed in her actions. In fact, I was starting to think I was imagining things. That the job had finally gotten to me._

'_Three o'clock when you can't sleep and the nightmares come, who do you blame for what happened to you?' She sounded as though she was taunting a small child. Not a man who had been tortured in a Russian military prison for eight years._

_I saw Lucas visibly stiffen and moved towards him warily as Connie continued. 'Eight years in Russian hell, who do you blame?'_

'_I blame Harry.'_

'_Then it's time to let it go, it wasn't Harry's fault.' His eyes widened. He needed to know the truth now, even if it cost him his life._

'_Who was it, Connie? Who sold me out?' His voice sounded urgent, pleading almost. But Connie ignored this. She looked down at her hands. 'You have ten seconds.'_

'_Who was it?' he repeated harshly._

'_Nine seconds…'_

'_I need to know!'_

'_Eight seconds…'_

'_JUST SAY IT!' he bellowed. I didn't know what Connie was playing at, but if I didn't interfere the bomb would kill three instead of one. 'Leave now!' I ordered, and grabbed his arm to turn him round. He resisted only slightly._

'_It was me. Always me.' Lucas body slackened, as if a string which had been attaching him to Connie had been cut. I looked back swiftly to see her continuing to sort out the wires, before finally using all the remaining energy to run for my life._

Lucas and I were the only ones who had witnessed this act; the one chance our traitorous colleague had to redeem herself. She'd saved millions of lives by unarming a nuclear bomb. What had she got in return?

She'd been blown up. And no-one would ever know they owed her their lives.

I heard Lucas' breath steady slightly and I slowly raised my head. I met his eyes. In his stormy grey eyes could see many things; relief, concern, understanding, reassurance, but the most prominent emotion was emptiness. It was a look I knew too well. I had seen it sometimes when I looked in the mirror.

He'd just been broken.

It happens to all of us. Part of our job description. See things you don't want to see, hear things you don't want to hear.

Go through things we don't want to go through.

He'll get over it one day, I thought. I knew that twenty years ago, these unsympathetically cold thoughts would have repulsed me; I would not have been capable of thinking them. They were monstrous. But that's what I had turned into. A repulsive monster.

I laughed to myself. If I could have seen then what I am now, I would have been frightened of myself.

We slowly made our way up to the main station in London Bridge, Lucas limping slightly, but putting on a tough front. I called Jo at the Grid, explaining that we needed a Broken Arrow unit to clean up any possible radiation leakage. The fact that life had seemed to go on as normal whilst we had been destroying a device which would have, if left to its own devices, incinerated the whole city, was beyond my comprehension.

That was what scared me now. How no-one knew anything. Everyone was lulled into such a false sense of security, naively believing that everything was just fine and dandy. Our society was a load of bullshit, and the people running it knew it.

I turned to look at Lucas then, who was watching warily as the FSB squad left, and I remembered he needed medical attention. I glanced at his face, his paleness enhanced his handsome features and his jaw was set. This wasn't the Lucas I had come to know. He just stood there, looking uneasy. I suppose you could have said he looked 'upset', but that wasn't a feeling we were allowed to feel. We couldn't permit ourselves the luxury of feeling it. So, when someone looks uneasy, we know it's just a dim copy of a stronger emotion which has been repressed.

My heart felt like it was breaking. For him. For me. For Connie. For everyone.

Giving him some privacy, I transferred my gaze to his side, which was matted with blood. An ambulance would definitely need to be called, how he had managed to run miles with that wound was a wonder.

After a few seconds, I looked up at him again, with hopefully what was meant to be a caring look, another thing which for me was slightly out of place. I felt a bit self-conscious and embarrassed about it, hoping that I didn't look to stupid. Pathetic, isn't it? I'm embarrassed about caring for people.

But we have try and be human, don't we, so embarrassed or not, it has to be done.

He broke down before I could say anything. Bringing his hand up to his face he tried to stifle the weeps which were threatening to burst out of him.

'...You okay?' I sounded like I was addressing a toddler who had fallen of their tricycle.

He quickly regained his composure, ignoring my question. I didn't consider it impolite; the gesture alone indicated that he would be, one day.

'They'll never know.'

'No.' I caught his gaze and kept it. 'And that's a good thing, Lucas, you know it is.'

But we both knew it wasn't. We just told ourselves it was okay, so that by deceiving ourselves we could believe it more. Deceiving others was our job.

He nodded. 'I need to talk to Harry…' I handed him the phone without a word, and stood a little way away from him. I knew what he was going to talk about, and I didn't feel like it had anything to do with me. I focused on calming my thoughts.

'Harry?' Lucas' puzzled voice caught my attention. His expression changed from distress to calm seriousness.

Something had gone horribly wrong.

'Has anyone made contact with him?' he asked me. No. As we stared at each other, realising that our friend had sacrificed himself for his country, our brains re-gearing themselves to start searching and scouring every single inch of the city, county, hell, even the entire world if it was necessary, I became conscious of a daunting fact.

Even we are human.

The game that is our lives, our job, our world, it never ends, and we lose and we win, we lose, we win, lose, win….

But no-one ever draws.


End file.
